“Penetrating. . . . Offers a powerful interpretation of the wellsprings of an age of unprecedently economic transformation, mass slaughter and social upheaval. . . . Facts roll off Hobsbawm’s pages like thunderbolts.” —The New Republic
“A magical re-creation of the most creative and destructive, the most utopian and most doubt-ridden period of human history. . . . I know of no other account that sheds as much light on what is now behind us, and thereby casts so much illumination on our possible futures.” —Robert Heilbroner
“Powerful. . . . A bracing and magisterial work.” —The New York Times Book Review
